Etihad Vacations begins operations in the United States

After seeing success in the UK and Australia, Etihad vacations has officially launched in the American market, with Canada soon to follow.

While primarily a platform for tour operators, individual passengers can book their packages through etihad.com or can combine them through their existing Etihad flight bookings.

The program primarily focuses on trips to Indian Ocean destinations such as the Maldives, Mauritius and Seychelles as well as packages to London and various points in Australia. The program is currently introducing similar ‘all in’ packages to Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam with other South East Asian countries to follow.

They also allow for ‘free stopovers’ at their hub in Abu Dhabi as well as in neighboring Dubai.

Through the VAX and Tripset databases Etihad Vacations will gain access to over 70,000 travel agencies across the United States beginning later in the fall, in time for the peak winter travel season to island destinations.

Its unclear whether this move signals more movement for Etihad to operate new or boost existing flights into the US, but the airline is currently enjoying very healthy North American load factors (outside their Texan operations, that is) and therefore the introduction of Etihad Vacations in this market can only help an already thriving business to grow.